The behavior of capacitors and inductors depend on rates of change and while you can memorize certain common formulas, they are just answers to calculus problems that someone else worked for you. This is useful in electronics when dealing with AC circuits. Conversely, if you integrate a function then take the derivative you will wind up back where you started. That is if you take a derivative and then integrate the result, you’ll wind up with the original function (well, at least, that’s one of the answers you’ll get). At first glance, those things don’t appear related, but in fact, they are inverses of each other. The integral describes the area under the curve of the function. If you have a function that represents something, the derivative of that function describes the rate of change at any point. Of course, the video is about ten years old, but that’s part of its charm.Īlthough calculus has a reputation of being tough, the concept is quite simple. However, either way, the videos have some humor value both from the FedEx commercial-style delivery to the non-computerized graphics (not to mention the glass-breaking sound effects). If you have no idea how to do calculus, maybe these are going to whiz by a little fast.

If you need a refresher, these videos might be useful.

Thinkwell has two videos that purport to teach you calculus in twenty minutes (YouTube, embedded below). Now imagine Khan Academy, run by an auctioneer and done without computers. If you didn’t go to engineering school, you will find that there’s an upper limit to how much electronics theory you can learn before you have to learn calculus. You may or may not remember a lot of calculus.

If you went to engineering school, you probably remember going to a lot of calculus classes.

Khan academy calculus 2